


loquere umbra

by that_one_scared_gay



Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Depression, Horror, Kinda, POV Second Person, Shadows - Freeform, no one ever gets mentioned by name and everything is vague as fuck, scary scary things happening at elsewhere, whatever i had fun with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21577705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_one_scared_gay/pseuds/that_one_scared_gay
Summary: It knows you, now. It knows your wants, your fears. What you desire most of all.We could Take you.It says.You would be safe. You would enjoy it.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	loquere umbra

**Author's Note:**

> the idea for this story was originally this:  
> "there is a girl who whispers to the shadows, and sometimes the shadows whisper back"
> 
> then it became second person, and i got the idea of using eu as a setting. i think it fits the whole vibe.

You stand in the hallway outside your English Lit. classroom. Your friend is prattling on about something or other, but you're not paying attention to her.

You're much too occupied with staring at the shadows on the other side of the hallway.

You shouldn't, really. It's not smart to look too closely at shadows here at Elsewhere.

* * *

Later, in your dorm room, it is your roommate’s turn to draw the salt lines. You wait until after she’s fallen asleep to make another one separating your side of the room from hers. Then you wipe off the salt on your windowsill and open your window, and wait.

It doesn’t take long.

You don’t see it come in, but you notice when the shadows next to your wardrobe become darker. It doesn’t do anything, this creature you’ve invited into your room. But you can feel its gaze on you, just as you do during the day. And you feel it watch you when you start talking.

You don’t dare speak any louder than a whisper. Can’t have your roommate waking up, after all. You sit there whispering all night, watching the shadows watch you. Watching them shift and move and get _closeclosecloser_ until the first rays of sunlight make it through the open window.

You look at the sun peaking out over the horizon in shock. You hadn’t realized how much time had passed.

When you look back to where your audience had been, the shadows are gone. You don’t try to deny your disappointment as you redo the salt lines before your roommate wakes up.

During the day, when you can barely keep your eyes open, you tell your friends you didn’t sleep well and nap all the way through your Writing and Rhetoric class.

You develop a new routine. At night, when you’re the only one awake, you redo the salt lines and open your window,. You spend your nights whispering to the shadows. And sometimes the shadows whisper back.

It knows you, now. It knows your wants, your fears. What you desire most of all.

_We could Take you._ It says. _You would be safe. You would enjoy it._

Yes, you tell it. But not yet.

You know you’ll take it up on its offer eventually. You know when you can barely manage the effort to drag yourself through the day. You know when you spend so long staring at your computer screen the words blur on the page, meaningless as the buzzing in your mind grows ever stronger.

You’ve known since you saw it watching you the first time. Since you invited it right into your room.

Still, you always make sure your roommate is safe beforehand. You know you’re as good as gone, but the last thing you want is to get her involved. It’s not her fault she got stuck with you for a roommate.

(Briefly you wonder if she’ll report it to the RAs when you’re finally gone. You think she will. She seems like the kind of person that would care.)

* * *

You sleep in all your classes now. Your grades are slipping. Your friends are worried about you.

You feel as though you’re already half gone more often than not. You’re barely living now.

(What is the point, when you know you’ll be gone soon?)

Once, you’re in the Library, writing a paper. It’s a day when you decided to put more effort into the facade, (just a regular sleep-deprived college student, nothing to see here, truly) but you’re not sure why you still bother.

You have trouble keeping your eyes peeled. You want nothing more than to fall asleep.

But you are still an Elsewhere student. You know the Rules. Falling asleep in the Library is as good as a death sentence.

(You wouldn’t really mind, but you already have plans for how you’ll go out. You think it’s part of being Involved)

Out of the corner of your eye you see the shadows move, two tables across from you. They darken that corner of the Library.

A wave of calm washes over you. You fall asleep, safe in the knowledge you’ll be in the same place (and in one piece) when you wake up.

(Later, your friends find you facedown on the desk and shake you awake.

‘What were you thinking?!’ they say.

‘It’s okay,’ you tell them. ‘I was safe.’

They don’t see the shadows in the corner.)

That night, when you let the shadows into your room, it asks you:

_Is it tonight?_

‘No,’ you say. You’re not ready yet. ‘I’ll tell you when.’

You worry for a second that you’ve pushed your luck, made it mad. But it simply does its equivalent to a grumble and settles again next to your wardrobe.

It sits there most nights. (Except for when it doesn’t, on the days that are especially Bad. Then it gets closer, sits on your bed with you and envolts you in its shadows. You wonder then if that’s what it’ll feel like when you are finally Taken.)

* * *

A week later it finds you outside your English Lit. classroom. You haven’t eaten, haven’t done the reading. Spent all night whispering to it in the dark.

_Today?_ It asks you. _Is it today?_

You think it’s ironic that it’s asking here, in the place you saw it for the first time.

‘No,’ you tell it, voice barely a murmur. ‘Not yet. But soon.’

_Soon,_ it croons, in a voice that sounds like a hundred whispers. _Soon._

You swear it sounds elated. You think you are, too.

* * *

One day, a rare day, you aren’t able to let it in. Your roommate had gone to a party, you didn’t want to risk her coming back to see you talking to it.

So your window stays shut, and you actually sleep at night.

* * *

You wake up in the morning and you _know_.

It is already waiting for you when you leave for class.

‘It’s today,’ you say to it.

_You are ready now?_ It whispers back.

It’s not actually a question. You know, and so you don’t bother answering.

You make it through the day by going through the motions, and it feels as though you’re watching yourself in third person.

When you get back to your dorm the sun is just starting to set. Your roommate is still out.

Good.

_Do not be nervous,_ it reassures you.

‘I’m not.’

The shadows envolt you again, but this time they are darker, harsher, pulling and prodding and breaking away bits of yourself.

You do not feel fear. Only overwhelming calm, and bliss, as even your consciousness is stripped from you.

* * *

When you can think again, you are no longer yourself. Part of you longs for the blissful non-existence you’d been feeling. Then you realize you are not a alone.

There are others. Hundreds of them, thousands. 

Voices, whisperinghissingwheezing together, as a unit. All of them focused on a single thing.

A girl, you notice. Not realizing that you now see without eyes. There is salt in her purse, like the you-who-was, keeping nails in her pockets. You sense it in her. An Elsewhere alumna.

It dawns on you then.

_Of course, of course._

Your voice is but a single whisper among the shadows.

You feel the others, your fellows, your various selves, now, all around you. And you fall into this shared conscious, allowing yourselves to speak as one when you address the girl.

_Hello._


End file.
